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LETTER 

.v* FROM 

MR,%ANLT, OF N. C. TO MR. BOTTS, OF VIRGINIA. 

A I) 



Washington City, Sept. 23d, 1840. 
My Dear Sir : 

I have read with much pleasure your letter to your constituents, rela- 
tive to the celebrated plan of Poinsett, and the Hooe case. I really pity the 
President and his Secretaries, who have made themselves so ridiculous, in 
their attempts to shield themselves from public indignation. There are gross 
inconsistencies and contradictions in their letters, which cannot be reconciled. 
But this you have handled well, and nothing remains for me to say. 

I wish, however, to say a word relative to the conduct of the Judiciary 
Committee. The President, in his electioneering letter to Mr. Burras, says, 
"that this committee are silent upon the subject." After Mr. Storrs, of 
Connecticut, resigned, I was placed on that committee to supply the vacancy. 
The case of Lieut. Hooe was then referred to us, and the committee, worn 
out as we all were, by the warm weather, sitting up late at night, and the 
press of business, found it impossible, with the little time at our command, to 
consider this case, without neglecting all the other business before the Com- 
mittee. 

As well as I remember, there was not a full meeting of the committee after 
I became a member of it. 

But what was it proposed that the Judiciary Committee should do? I have 
lately seen an article in the Government organ, commenting upon the vote in 
the House, on the resolution of Mr. Chapman, of Alabama, and of course mis- 
representing the whole affair. By reference to the journal, you will observe 
that on the 14th of July, "a motion was made by Mr. Chapman, of Alabama, 
that the rules in relation to the order of business be suspended, to enable him 
to move the following resolution :" 

"Resolved, That the Judiciary Committee, having charge of the case of Lieut. Hooe, do 
forthwith report a bill to this House, prohibiting the enlistment of negroes or colored per- 
sons in the service of the Navy or Army of the United States." 

To this resolution I was decidedly opposed, and gave my reasons for it. 
In these, if I remember right, you concurred. By reference to the journal, 
on the 17th July, you will find I succeeded in having these objections entered 
on the journal. I asked to be excused from voting, that I might be enabled 
to assign my reasons, which were as follows : 

" Mr. Stanly asked to be excused from voting, because the Judiciary Committee had not 
time at this period of the session, to examine and prepare any law on any subject; because 
the President and the Secretary of the Navy had already full power and authority to ex- 
clude them from giving testimony against white men. and to set aside the proceedings ol 



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courts martial, if they saw any thing requiring their interference ; and because he (Mr. S.) 
could not consent that the Navy should be deprived of the services of negroes, as cooks, 
stewards, and servants, for there is no necessity they should be witnesses ; and because, to 
enact such a law as the gentleman from Alabama .proposes, would, in effect, make white 
men negroes, by imposing on them the necessity of discharging duties heretofore dischaiged 
by negroes." 

This explains my opinions, as a Southern man, and as a member of the Ju- 
diciary Committee. And after deliberate examination, I believe these views 
are correct: and I know a large majority of Southern men think with me. 

That great laboratory of lies, the Globe, gives the names of those who vo- 
ted against Mr. Chapman's resolution. 

If you will look at the journal, you will find, on the 14th of July, Mr. 
Chapman introduced his resolution to have the rules suspended, and the yeas 
and nays are there given. The Globe would have the South to believe, that 
all the Loco Focos who supported Mr. Chapman in his motion are good De- 
mocrats, and friends of the South. But to expose this unfounded and hypo- 
critical pretension, I need only call your attention to the names of H. Wil- 
liams, and Wm. Parmenter, both of whom are found voting with Mr. Chap- 
man. Both of whom, therefore, the Globe intends to palm upon the South as 
friends of the institution of Slavery, and in favor of excluding negroes from 
entering the service. 

I have before me copies of the letters written by Messrs. Parmenter and 
Williams, before they were elected members of Congress, and I give you an 
extract from each. The extracts I here give you, J read in the House of 
Representatives, and they ivere not denied by Parmenter and Williams: 

Extract of a letter from Wm. Parmexter to Dr. Amos Farsswouth, dated East Cam- 
bridge, October 16, 1838. 

" That the existence of slavery is an evil of great magnitude is not disputed, excepting by 
a very small portion of the citizens of the Union. In my opinion, the powers possessed by 
Congress should be exercised to prohibit inter-State slave trade and to abolish slavery in 
the District of Columbia, whenever such measures can be adopted consistently with the 
safety of the nation ; and I deem it the duty of Congress to regard the requirements of jus- 
tice and humanity as well as the other obligations of the Constitution of the United States." 

" I am not in favor of the admission of any new State whose Constitution may tolerate 
slavery, and in this sentiment I believe the People of this section of the country almost unan- 
imously coincide. 

, " Respectfully and truly, yours, 

WILL. PARMENTER." 

Extract of a letter of H. Williams to Rev. P. Ckaxdall, Fall River, dated Taunton, 

November 1, 1838. 

" Dear Sir : I have this day received your letter of the 3 1st ult. propounding to me in- 
terrogatories in behalf of the Bristol County Anti-Slavery Society, and for answer refer you 
to my course in the Massachusetts Senate, and to a letter written to Andrew Robeson, Esq. 
about one year since, and published in the newspapers of that time. That letter contains 
opinions I had long entertained and often expressed. I have since seen no reason to change 
them. I still believe slavery to be contrary to the laws of God and the best interests of man,- 
that it ought not to be extended by the admission of new States into the Union with Con- 
stitutions tolerating so great an evil ; and that it is the imperative duty of Congj-ess to 
adopt immediate measures for its abolition in the District of Columbia. 

H. WILLIAMS." 

Now, both these men, Parmenter and Williams, are full-blooded Loco 
Focos, and accordino; to Globe logic, are o-enuine friends of the South ; and if 
they are defeated at the next election, we shall hear that the Abolitionists have 
triumphed over these immaculate Democrats ! 



Anti-slavery resolutions were introduced into the Massachusetts Legisla- 
ture. The question was taken by yeas and nays upon each resolution; hero 
are two of them : 

" Resolved. That Congress, having exclusive legislation in the District of Columbia, posses- 
ses the tight to abolish slavery and the slave-trade therein ; and that the early exercise of such 
right is demanded by the enlightened sentiment of the civilized world, by the principles of the 
Revolution, and by humanity. 

Resolved, That slavery being an admitted moral and political evil, whose continuance, 
wherever it exists, is vindicated mainly on the ground of necessity, should be circumscribed 
within the limits of the States where it has been already established ; and that no now State 
should hereafter be admitted into the Union whose Constitution of government shall sanction 
or permit the existence of domestic slavery." 

Whether those who voted for these resolutions were Abolitionists or not, I 
leave Southern people to decide. 

Upon the passage of these resolutions, Henry Williams, with every other 
Van Buren Senator except one, recorded his name in the affirmative ! 

You will have perceived from the course of the Administration papers, that 
the attempt will be made to delude the Southern country by crying out that 
" the abolitionists have defeated the democrats in Vermont." 

No man of ordinary intelligence, can any longer be deceived by this ridi- 
culous cry. But, if there should be one, I can easily satisfy him of his error. 

There are but two Administration members from Vermont in the present 
Congress, and both these, are abolitionists. They have been both defeated, 
and now we are told, the abolitionists have beaten these good Democrats ! ! 

On the 16th day of January last, in a speech which I delivered in the 
House of Representatives, I referred to the fact that many of Mr. Van Bu- 
ren's leading friends in Vermont, were abolitionists. Mr. E. D. Barber, the 
Loco-foco candidate for the office of Lieutenant Governor, was mentioned 
among others. It had been remarked, during the debate, that Mr. Slade was 
a Whig and an abolitionist, and in reply to this, I made the following state- 
ment : 

" But, Sir, in the district represented by this member, the Van Buren abolitionists had a 
convention, and the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, E. D. Barber, opposed his (Mr. 
Sladk's) nominatioH. I understand this E. D. Barber is well known as a devoted friend 
of this Administration, the editor of a paper, and an undisguised abolitionist. There are 
two Administration members from Vermont on this floor, both of whom are abolitionists. 
One of them was here at the last Congress, (Mr. Fletcher ;) he is in favor of abolishing 
slavery in the District of Columbia, thinks that Congress ought to prevent the buying and 
selling slaves between the States, and has expressed a willingness to enter into the customa- 
ry international relations with Hayti. " 

These remarks, I repeat, were made in the House of Representatives, in 
the hearing of the Vermont members, they were published, and have never 
been, and will not be denied. 

In the Vermont election, which is recently heard from, the abolition candi- 
date for the office of Governor, Mr. Dillingham ; the abolition candidate for 
the office of Lieutenant Governor, Mr. E. D. Barber, and the abolitionists, 
Smith and Fletcher, were all beaten. 

Some weeks after the publication of the speech referred to, I received, 
through the mail, two pamphlets from Mr. E. i). Barber: One of them was 
" Mr. Barber's oration, delivered before the Addison county Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety, on the 4th of July, 1836," and the other was, "An oration delivered 
before the democrats of Washington countv, at Montpelier, on the 4th of July, 
1839, by Edward D. Barber." ' 



On one of these pamphlets, winch this impudent Loc<vfoco sent to me, he 
wrote, " From the author," and informed me that what I had been told, as to 
his opinions, was "true beyond all possible denial," as I would perceive by 
reading these pamphlets. I think I exhibited the pamphlets to you when 
they were received by the mail. I have them now before me, and this Mr. 
Barber, over whose defeat the Loco-focos are mourning, writes on one of his 
orations, that he is " a democrat, true to his principles, as taught by Jeffer- 
son, himself an abolitionist .'" I quote his own words. And this is one of 
the men, the Secretary of an Anti-Slavery Society, and a devoted friend of 
Mr. Van Buren's, who calls Jefferson an abolitionist, this is the man whom 
the Van Buren party supported as their candidate for the office of Lieutenant 
Govornor, in Vermont ! and still, we shall be told that the abolitionists are all 
Whigs, and have beaten the " democrats" in Vermont. 

The Whig victory in Maine, has overwhelmed the tories here. They con- 
fess their astonishment at the result. Judging from what they have already 
said, as to the Vermont elections, I should not be much surprised, if they 
boldly charge the Whig victory in Maine, as an abolition triumph. You may 
expect to hear this next. Of course the Whig majorities in Kentucky, 
Louisiana, and North Carolina, will all likewise be imputed to abolition in- 
fluence. 

As to Maine, it may be as well to refresh the memories of those who have 
forgotten the circumstances. Mr. Albert Smith, of Maine, who was recently 
defeated, gave satisfactory answers to the abolitionists before his election. 
Mr. Smith said in his letter : " No man can be more decidedly opposed to 
slavery in the abstract, or more deeply desire the freedom of the whole human 
family than myself. Mr. Smith was also opposed to the admission of Texas, 
and in favor of the right of petition. 

Mr. Fairfield, the Governor of Maine, who has just been defeated, was 
a member of the last Congress ; he also wrote a letter to the abolitionists, in 
which, he assured them that he regarded slavery as a " moral and political 
evil," to which he is, and has ever been, both in principle and feeling, utterly 
opposed, and that its entire abolition could afford to no one, more sincere 
pleasure than himself. But he is now regarded as one whom the abolition- 
ists have defeated. Mr. Fairfield was in Congress when Mr. Calhoon, of 
Kentucky, on the loth December, 1839, introduced the following resolution, 
which I copy from the journals before me : 

" Mr. Calhoox, of Kentucky, moved that the rules be suspended to enable him to move 
the following resolution : 

" Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to report a bill making it 
unlawful for any person to aid fugitive slaves in escaping from their owners, and providing 
for the punishment in the Courts of the United States of all persons who may be guilty of 
such offence. 

" And that they be further instructed to report a bill making it unlawful for any person in 
the non-slaveholding States of this Union to use any means to induce slaves from their 
owners, and providing for the punishment, in the Courts of the United States, of all persons 
who may be guilty of such offence." 

Now, surely, no man friendly to the rights of the South, no good " demo- 
crat" could object to the passage of such a resolution, but as the entire aboli- 
tion of slavery could afford to no one more sincere pleasure than to him, he 
was found voting against Mr. Calhoon's motion. The names of II. J. An- 
derson, Thomas Davee, John Fairfield, and Virgil D. Paris, Loco-focos, from 
Maine, will be found in the journal, with the names of Alexander Duncan, 
Isaac Fletcher, William Parmenter, and William Slade, all opposing this rea- 
sonable, just, and honest proposition. 



Before I conclude, I wish to examine a portion of the President's letter — 
a letter full of subterfuge and prevarication, the reading of which filled me 
with shame at the thought that its author was President of the United States. 
The President says, " There is no act of Congress which prohibits the ad- 
mission of colored persons as witnesses in Courts Martial." Again, he says: 
" If it be wrong to admit them, the fault is in the law, and the remedy is to 
be found only in its alteration." 

I have selected these passages for remark, as the letter has already been 
fully exposed, and repetition is useless. The President tells us, with as much 
distinctness as he can, that in all cases hereafter, where negro testimony is 
admitted against a white man, he cannot interfere. This should be under- 
stood. If Martin Van Buren is re-elected (of which thank Heaven there is 
now I believe no danger,) he will never interfere in setting aside the proceed- 
ings of Courts Martial, in which such testimony has been admitted. And he 
expects the votes of Southern States with this insulting declaration ! 

Now, in all this, I think the course of the President, merits the severest 
reprehension. According to the inclination of my mind at present, I should 
feel bound to oppose such a law, and for several reasons. In the first place, 
I trust we shall never have a President again who could be guilty of such 
conduct, and because I prefer to let the matter rest where it now does — upon 
that spirit of concession, by which, as General Harrison said our union was 
effected, and without which, it could not be preserved. If we are to depend 
upon Legislative action for the protection of all our rights, the Union had as 
well be dissolved. There are obligations of a higher character than mere 
acts of Congress. Besides if Congress can pass a law making negro testi- 
mony illegal, Congress can repeal that law. Suppose a bill should be intro- 
duced in the House of Representatives, declaring that Congress should not, 
during the next two years, abolish slavery in this district? Would any 
Southern man vote for it ? Surely not, for it concedes to Congress the right 
to abolish slavery in this district. Or suppose a bill should be introduced, 
declaring that the people of Virginia should not be molested in taking their 
slaves from that State to Alabama. What Southern man would vote for it? 
None, because Virginia holds her right much more securely than if it was 
only protected by an act of Congress. The President, therefore, to my mind, 
does not regard this question as a Patriot should — his " southern principles" 
are not found in operation here. The right of a white man, in a slave-hold- 
ing State, to object to the admission of the testimony of negro servants, can- 
not be effected by an act of Congress. 

But let me illustrate the unsoundness of the President's argument further. 
The act of Congress of 1794, which provides for a naval armament, directs 
that there shall be employed on board each of the ships of 44 guns, one Cap- 
tain, four Lieutenants, SfC. §c. The act says nothing of white Captains, 
or Lieutenants. What prevents the President from appointing a negro Cap- 
tain or Lieutenant ? The act of 1798, which established the department of 
the navy, in the first section provides as follows : 

Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 
of America, in Congress assembled, That there shall he an Executive Department, under 
the denomination of the department of the navy, the chief 'officer of which, shall he called the 
Secretary of the Navy, &c. &c. &c. 

The law does not say he shall be a white " chief officer." According to 
the President's argument, he would be authorized to appoint a negro Secretary 
of the Navy ! Again, the act of 1809 which authorized the employment of 
an additional naval force, authorized and empowered the President of the 



G 

United States, " to appoint, and cause to be engaged and employed as soon 
as may be, three hundred midshipmen, three thousand six hundred able sea- 
men, ordinary seamen and boys," &c. &c. Nothing said of lokite midship- 
men, or white able seamen. No one can doubt that under this law many 
white midshipmen were employed, and many black sailors. But according 
to the argument of the President and his Secretary of the Navy, " there is no 
act of Congress which prohibits the admission of colored persons," as mid- 
shipmen in the navy. And I cannot see according to the views of the Presi- 
dent, why he should not appoint a few negro midshipmen, in the navy of the 
United States, and I should be glad to hear any supporter of his give any 
reason for his not doing so, that would not with equal force apply against their 
being admitted as witnesses against white persons. 

And if a President should appoint a negro as his Secretary of the Navy, 
I should like to see a southern Senator who would confirm the nomination, 
and then return to his constituents and tell them "there was no law forbidding 
it," and he might say so, with as much truth and propriety as the President 
has said in the case of Lieutenant Hooe. A President who disregards the 
moral sense of the whole southern country, who pays no respect to their 
prejudices, except so far as the laws of Congress compel him, is unfit to pre- 
side over the destinies of these United States, which could never have been 
united without concession, and which will be disunited when that patriotic 
spirit of concession shall depart from among us. 

The President understands his game with the Abolitionists. They may 
quarrel with him for his promised veto, but then, as in the case of William 
Legget, who boasted he was an abolitionist, he can send a few of their lead- 
ers abroad as foreign ministers. The abolitionists already praise him for his 
conduct in the case of Lieut. Hooe, and the Emancipator remarks, "unless 
"the President has given some very foolish reasons, (which is not unlikely) 
'•his conduct in this case will redound as much to his honor, and afford him 
"as much satisfaction, in a future day, as any one measure of his administra- 
tion." 

As to Mr. Secretary Paulding, his feelings have always been of an un- 
friendly character towards the South. Some years ago Mr. Paulding wrote 
a book called "Letters from the South," in which he endeavors to make the 
people of Virginia contemptible in the eyes of her sister States. In the first 
volume of this book, in Letter the 11th, Mr. Paulding gives the following ac- 
count, which I copy from the book before me: 

"Jogging along from the house where we left the caitiff, who will one day I fear bring 
down some great calamity on the country of his birth, it was our fate to meet with another 
example of the tricks men play "before high Heaven," when not only custom but the laws 
sanction oppression. The sun was shining out very hot, and in turning an angle of the 
road, we encountered the following group : first a little cart drawn by one horse, in which 
five or six half naked, black children were tumbled like pigs together. The cart had no 
covering, and they seemed to have been actually broiled to sleep. Behind the cart, marched 
three black women, with their head, neck and breasts uncovered, and without shoes or stock- 
ings; next came three men bare headed, half naked, and chained together with an ox-chain. 
Last of all came a white man — a white man ! Frank, on horseback, carrying pistols in his 
belt, and who, as we passed him, had the impudence to look us in the face without blushing. 
I should like to have seen him hunted with bloodhounds. At a house where we stopped, a 
little further on, we learned that he had bought these miserable beings in Maryland, and was 
inarching them in this manner to some one of the more southern States. Shame on the 
State of Maryland ! I say, and shame on the State of Virginia ! and every State, through 
which this wretched cavalcade, was permitted to pass ! Do they expect that such exhibitions 
will not dishonor them in the eyes of strangers, however they may be reconciled to them by 
education and habit 1 " 



Then Mr. Paulding speaks of this picture drawn from his imagination, as 
" a flagrant and indecent outrage on humanity." This I copy from his letter 
published soon after his journey through Virginia. But afterwards, in 1835, 
Mr. Paulding published a new edition of his work, and in this edition of 
1835, all that I have quoted is entirely omitted ! In the old edition, the 
letter lltli " occupies more than thirteen pages, but in the edition of 1835, 
(published after Mr. Van Buren became a " Northern man with Southern 
principles,") this letter the I lth, occupies only three pages ! No wonder 
such a man will say the President had nothing to do with the proceedings in 
Hooe's case, and also say that it had been the uniform practice to admit 
negroes to testify against white men, when he was not able to produce a 
single instance. 

This letter has already extended much further than I expected, but before 
I conclude, let me apprise you of some of the contemptible designs of the 
Loco-focos. 

I have seen two letters from gentlemen of character and intelligence, com- 
municating the fact, that the Van Buren party intend, shortly before the Pre- 
sidential election, to issue hand bills, and start reports of intended insurrec- 
tions in the South. I have no doubt that some such plan is in contemplation. 
We know that many of them are wicked enough to do any thing. They are 
not only struggling for bread, and they fear the investigation which is to come. 
Let our friends, therefore, be prepared for these villainous tricks ; but let it be 
understood that when the insurrection takes place, Benjamin Tappan has pro- 
mised to furnish five hundred dollars, to buy powder and shot for the negroes, 
and he is a good Van Buren democrat. 

Our friends, every where, are full of confidence, and feel assured of victory. 
No man can doubt any longer, that General Harrison will be elected ; elected 
in spite ot the persecutions of unprincipled officeholders, and the furious 
assaults of the Globe, and the abolition papers, which continue to denounce 
him, most violently. I hope, in this most important struggle, Virginia, the 
land of Washington, Madison, Henry, and Marshall, will be found as she 
was in the revolution, among the first, in resisting, strenuously, the encroach- 
ments of power, I trust she will, not only, in defence of the character of her 
own distinguished son, but for the sake of the whole country, express her op- 
position to the man who has, by wretched experiments, brought a prosperous 
country almost to ruin, who has by pitiful equivocations, caused every patriot 
to teel ashamed of his country, and who has sanctioned the admission of negro 
testimony against one of her own sons, and declared he must continue to do so. 

I have travelled through the State of New York, and, of course, saw many 
ot the people of that State, and many from New England ; I saw them in 
private social intercourse, and saw them in public meetings, consisting of ten 
thousand and twenty thousand persons, and I assure you, every decent man 
I met, with whom I conversed upon the subject, spoke with contempt of the 
abolitionists, and expressed surprise that any southern man could imagine the 
majority of the people were infected with that villainous heresy. ' This I 
speak of my own knowledge. 

I believe nearly nine out of ten of the cut-throat abolitionists, the Duncan 
and Tappan abolitionists, are real "barn-burning" Loco-focos. 

1 congratulate you upon the glorious prospect before us, that our country 
will soon be free from the dominion of the plunderers, who have so lono- 
neglected and crushed her best interests. Very truly, yours, 

EDWARD STANLY. 
Hon. John M. Bott*, Richmond, J 'a. 



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